In the first semester when we had the sociology class, I had no imagination of how psychosocial theories would help me to understand mental disorders much easier.
It’s been a while since scientists tried to come up with a biopsychosocial model but it’s a big deal because there are three dragons themselves, let alone finding their connections with each other.
When did I find out I needed to learn more about my brain?
I was looking for a book about Trauma and I found: “The Body Keeps the Score”
In comparison to my previous reading on trauma “What Happened to You?” this book was more evidence-based and neuroscientific. I wasn’t aware of what trauma can do to someone’s life. To show its bad influence It’s enough to point out its comorbidity with other mental disorders like depression and anxiety disorder: About 80 percent of people with PTSD have at least one other mental diagnosis, and a large percentage have three or more. I gathered some of Dr. Perry’s quotes for you here:
1
“Trauma permeates all aspects of life: it echoes through the generations, across families, communities, institutions, cultures, and societies, and it does so in very complex ways.”
2
Our ancestors recognized the importance of connectedness and the toxicity of exclusion.
3
“Over the years, I have found that seemingly senseless behavior makes sense once you look at what is behind it. And since the brain is the part of us that allows us to think, feel and act, whenever I am trying to understand someone, I wonder about the person’s brain. Why did they do that? What would make them act that way? Something happened that how their brain works”
I think these three quotes will make you feel like me. Asking this question from yourself when you see anyone with any kind of behavioral problem: “What happened to their brain?”
An opportunity to reinvent my lens of view
After the book “Lost Connections” by Johann Hari I was in need of changing my cold neuroscientific lens with something different. The book “Good Reasons for Bad Feelings” by Randolph Nesse gave me this opportunity to reinvent my ideas. I haven’t completed the book but I think you need to read this piece about this book from “British Journal of General Practice” to be convinced that this book is worthy of your time.
Nesse applies an evolutionary lens to understand why natural selection has left humans vulnerable to developing these debilitating symptoms that increasingly lead patients to our doors in general practice. He argues that humans have the capacity to experience deeply unpleasant emotions such as anxiety and depression as they are adaptive for our reproductive success, such as anxiety promoting vigilance in a dangerous situation. He uses the analogy of a sensitive smoke alarm, which might inappropriately sound in response to burnt toast — this low-cost inconvenience is worth the high-value protection that the same fire alarm provides when it alerts us early to a genuine threat. Similarly, anxiety and depression, which harbour adaptive functions, might sometimes be turned on inappropriately as well as in response to situations that resemble those they evolved in — this ‘over-sensitiveness’ constitutes a fitness advantage for our genes (which our emotions evolved to propagate).
